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Constantine IX Monomachos (c1000-1055)
300px |caption =Mosaic of Christ Pantocrator, surrounded by Empress Zoë and Emperor Constantine IX, at the Hagia Sophia |alt =A mosaic with a background of gold depicts a seated Christ Pantocrator. A woman stands to his left and her husband stands to his right. |succession = Emperor of the Byzantine Empire |reign =11 June 1042 – 11 January 1055 |coronation =12 June 1042 |predecessor =Zoë |successor =Theodora |spouse =Helena Skleraina Empress Zoë Maria Skleraina A Georgian princess |spouse-type=Wife Mistress |full name = |house =Macedonian (by marriage) Monomachos family |house-type=Dynasty |father =Theodosios Monomachos |mother = |birth_date =c. 1000 |birth_place =Constantinople |death_place = Anatolic Theme |death_date =11 January 1055 (aged 54–55) |place of burial =Monastery of Mangana, Constantinople ||title=Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans}} Constantine IX Monomachos, Latinized as Constantine IX Monomachus ( ; c. 1000 – 11 January 1055), reigned as Byzantine emperor from 11 June 1042 to 11 January 1055. He had been chosen by the Empress Zoë as a husband and co-emperor in 1042, although he had been exiled for conspiring against her previous husband, Emperor Michael IV the Paphlagonian. They ruled together until Zoë died in 1050. During Constantine's reign, the Byzantine Empire fought wars against groups which included the Kievan Rus' and the Seljuq Turks. In the year before his death, the split between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches took place. Early life Constantine Monomachos was the son of Theodosios Monomachos, an important bureaucrat under Basil II and Constantine VIII.Kazhdan, pg. 1398 At some point, Theodosios had been suspected of conspiracy and his son's career suffered accordingly.Norwich, pg. 307 Constantine's position improved after he married his second wife, a niece of Emperor Romanos III Argyros.Norwich, pg. 306 Catching the eye of Empress Zoë, Constantine was exiled to Mytilene on the island of Lesbos by her second husband, Michael IV.Kazhdan, pg. 504 The death of Michael IV and the overthrow of Michael V in 1042 led to Constantine being recalled from his place of exile and appointed as a judge in Greece.Finlay, pg. 500 However, prior to commencing his appointment, Constantine was summoned to Constantinople, where the fragile working relationship between Michael V's successors, the empresses Zoë and Theodora, was breaking down. After two months of increasing acrimony between the two, Zoë decided to search for a new husband, thereby hoping to prevent her sister from increasing her popularity and authority.Finlay, pg. 499 After her first preference displayed contempt for the empress and her second died under mysterious circumstances,Norwich, pg. 306 Zoë remembered the handsome and urbane Constantine. The pair were married on 11 June 1042, without the participation of Patriarch Alexius I of Constantinople, who refused to officiate over a third marriage (for both spouses).Norwich, pg. 307 On the following day, Constantine was formally proclaimed emperor together with Zoë and her sister Theodora. Reign Constantine continued the purge instituted by Zoë and Theodora, removing the relatives of Michael V from the court.Finlay, pg. 505 The new emperor was pleasure-lovingNorwich, pg. 308 and prone to violent outbursts on suspicion of conspiracy.Finlay, pg, 510 He was heavily influenced by his mistress, Maria Skleraina, a relative of his second wife, and Maria's family. Constantine had another mistress, a certain "Alan princess", probably Irene, daughter of the Georgian Bagratid prince Demetrius.Lynda Garland with Stephen H. Rapp Jr. (2006). 'of Alania'. An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors. Retrieved on 3 April 2011. ]] In August 1042, under the influence of the Skleroi the emperor relieved General George Maniakes from his command in Italy, and Maniakes rebelled, declaring himself emperor in September.Norwich, pg. 310 He transferred his troops into the Balkans and was about to defeat Constantine's army in battle, when he was wounded and died on the field, ending the crisis in 1043.Norwich, pg. 311 Immediately after the victory, Constantine was attacked by a fleet from Kievan Rus';Norwich, pg. 311 it is "incontrovertible that a Rus' detachment took part in the Maniakes rebellion".Quoted from: Litavrin, Grigory. Rus'-Byzantine Relations in the 11th and 12th Centuries. // History of Byzantium, vol. 2, chapter 15, p. 347-352. Moscow: Nauka, 1967 (online) They too were defeated, with the help of Greek fire.Finlay, pg. 514 Constantine married his relative Anastasia to the future Prince Vsevolod I of Kiev, the son of his opponent Yaroslav I the Wise. Constantine's family name Monomachos ("one who fights alone") was inherited by Vsevolod and Anastasia's son, Vladimir II Monomakh. Constantine IX's preferential treatment of Maria Skleraina in the early part of his reign led to rumors that she was planning to murder Zoë and Theodora.Norwich, pg. 309 This led to a popular uprising by the citizens of Constantinople in 1044, which came dangerously close to actually harming Constantine who was participating in a religious procession along the streets of Constantinople.Finlay, pg. 503 The mob was only quieted by the appearance at a balcony of Zoë and Theodora, who reassured the people that they were not in any danger of assassination.Finlay, pg. 503 In 1045 Constantine annexed the Armenian kingdom of Ani,Norwich, pg. 340 but this expansion merely exposed the empire to new enemies. In 1046 the Byzantines came into contact for the first time with the Seljuk Turks.Norwich, pg. 341 They met in battle in Armenia in 1048 and settled a truce the following year.Finlay, pg. 520 Even if the Seljuk rulers were willing to abide by the treaty, their unruly Turcoman allies showed much less restraint. The Byzantine forces suffered a cataclysmic defeat at the battle of Manzikert in 1071.Norwich, pg. 314 Constantine began persecuting the Armenian Church, trying to force it into union with the Orthodox Church.Norwich, pg. 341 In 1046,John H. Rosser, Historical Dictionary of Byzantium, Scarecrow Press, 2001, p. xxx. he refounded the University of Constantinople by creating the Departments of Law and Philosophy.Aleksandr Petrovich Kazhdan, Annabel Jane Wharton, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, University of California Press, 1985, p. 122. chronicle.]] In 1047 Constantine was faced by the rebellion of his nephew Leo Tornikios in Adrianople. Tornikios was forced to retreat, failed in another siege, and was captured during his flight.Norwich, pg. 314 The revolt had weakened Byzantine defenses in the Balkans, and in 1048 the area was raided by the Pechenegs,Finlay, pg. 515 who continued to plunder it for the next five years. The emperor's efforts to contain the enemy through diplomacy merely exacerbated the situation, as rival Pecheneg leaders clashed on Byzantine ground, and Pecheneg settlers were allowed to live in compact settlement in the Balkans, making it difficult to suppress their rebellion.Norwich, pg. 315 Constantine seems to have taken recourse to the pronoia system, a sort of Byzantine feudal contract in which tracts of land (or the tax revenue from it) were granted to particular individuals in exchange for contributing to and maintaining military forces.Finlay, pg. 504 Constantine could be wasteful with the imperial treasury. On one occasion he is said to have sent an Arab leader 500,000 gold coins, over two tons of gold.Laiou, pg.3 In 1054 the centuries-old differences between the Greek and Roman churches led to their final separation. Legates from Pope Leo IX excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Keroularios when Keroularios would not agree to adopt western church practices, and in return Keroularios excommunicated the legates.Norwich, pg. 321 This sabotaged Constantine's attempts to ally with the Pope against the Normans, who had taken advantage of the disappearance of Maniakes to take over Southern Italy.Norwich, pg. 316 Constantine tried to intervene, but he fell ill and died on 11 January of the following year.Norwich, pg. 324 He was persuaded by his councillors, chiefly the logothetes tou dromou John, to ignore the rights of the elderly Theodora, daughter of Constantine VIII, and to pass the throne to the doux of Bulgaria, Nikephoros Proteuon.Finlay, pg. 527 However, Theodora was recalled from her retirement and named empress.Treadgold, pg. 596 Architecture and art The literary circle at the court of Constantine IX included the philosopher and historian Michael Psellos,Garland, pg. 246 whose Chronographia records the history of Constantine's reign. Psellos left a physical description of Constantine in his Chronographia: he was "ruddy as the sun, but all his breast, and down to his feet... were colored the purest white all over, with exquisite accuracy. When he was in his prime, before his limbs lost their virility, anyone who cared to look at him closely would surely have likened his head to the sun in its glory, so radiant was it, and his hair to the rays of the sun, while in the rest of his body he would have seen the purest and most translucent crystal."Psellos, 126:2–5 Immediately upon ascending to the throne in 1042, Constantine IX set about restoring the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which had been substantially destroyed in 1009 by Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah.Finlay, pg. 468 Permitted by a treaty between al-Hakim's son Ali az-Zahir and Byzantine Emperor Romanos III, it was Constantine IX who finally funded the reconstruction of the Church and other Christian establishments in the Holy Land. See also *List of Byzantine emperors References Sources Primary sources * Michael Psellus, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers, trans. E.R.A. Sewter (Penguin, 1966). * Secondary sources * * * * * Angold, Michael. The Byzantine empire 1025–1204 (Longman, 2nd edition, 1997). * Harris, Jonathan. Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium (Hambledon/Continuum, 2007). * Finlay, George. History of the Byzantine Empire from 716 – 1057, William Blackwood & Sons, 1853. * Garland, Lynda. Conformity and Non-conformity in Byzantium, Verlag Adolf M. Hakkert, 1997. Category:Macedonian dynasty Category:11th-century Byzantine emperors Category:Died in 1055 Category:Orthodox monarchs Category:Monomachos family Category:1040s in the Byzantine Empire Category:1050s in the Byzantine Empire